Slow Shutter Cam review
People say you can’t do much with mobile cameras when you take the photo. It’s all in the processing, they say. Well, true. With most mobile cameras, you have no control over the three points of the traditional exposure triangle: ISO, aperture and shutter speed. But there are a few apps that do allow you to take control over one of those variables: shutter speed. Slowing down your shutter speed is something big-camera photographers so all the time - it’s one of their main creative tools. This article looks at one of the apps that give you that same tool with your mobile camera: Slow Shutter Cam by Cogitap Software. Retailing at a ridiculous $0.99, this app gives you huge creative photo-taking potential.
So what does it do? As the name suggests, it allows you to slow down your shutter speed. You decide how long you expose your sensor to the scene in front of the lens. The app makes adjustments to ensure you don’t over-expose your photo but if you leave the shutter open for a long period (say 10 seconds) and anything moves in your frame (or if you move your camera) you will get some blur. But it is precisely this blur that makes it such an exciting creative tool.
One of the common reasons for lengthening the time that your sensor is exposed to light is when you you’re working in low-lighting situations. In this case, any movement may in fact be unwanted rather than creative distortion.
Example of a low-lighting scene shot with Slow Shutter Cam
If you use Slow Shutter Cam as a practical remedy to a low-lighting problem (rather than as a creative tool), you will need to keep your camera still (eg by using a tripod). If something in your scene moves while you are taking the photo, it will show up in your final exposure as a blur. But that’s part of its creative attraction. Holding your camera still, while something in your scene moves is the first of the three main ways people use Slow Shutter Cam creatively. It’s a technique that big-camera photographers have used for many years. It allows us to create the classic waterfall image, where the water is smooth and fluffy, and the image where lights on passing traffic create a trail (see below for a variation on this).
This technique can be used in more creative ways too if applied to things other than traffic and waterfalls (eg people).
The second, more creative, technique is to move the camera on purpose while taking the photo. The combination of this technique and the use of the app’s light-trail mode has produced a very characteristic “look” in more experimental mobile photography. When people are included in an image of this type, they take on a Modigliani-style stick-insect aspect and it’s a look that has been widely used.
An example of a stick-insect person achieved by moving the camera slightly
It’s a technique best used when an image contains very well delineated blocks of colour. One of the leading proponents of the technique is American artist, Cindy Patrick, whose beach scenes are some of its best examples.
The third technique is to move the camera in parallel with a moving subject, a technique known as panning. If you are able to keep your frame more or less fixed on your subject, the long exposure will give you an interesting mixture of well-defined features and blur.
Examples of panning with Slow Shutter Cam
While primarily an app for taking photos, it does have an amazing post-production feature that you will not find on a DSLR: freeze-frame. This feature effectively divides your long exposure into multiple frames, the first and the last frames being very sharp and the ones in between having varying levels of blur. You can save any of these frames and then, using an app like Blender, blend them together to your heart’s creative delight.
So when people say mobile is all about the processing, remember Slow Shutter Cam. Although the images it allows the user to make may often have a painterly or experimental look, it in fact takes us back to the roots of photography by allowing us, especially if we use the techniques mentioned here, to feel we are really drawing with light.
This article originally appeared in FLTR magazine
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